


Pour qui sont ces serpents qui sifflent sur vos têtes ?

by RebeccaAnabelBurrows



Series: The Olympos [3]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Harassment, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lesbian Character, Lesbophobia, Nymphs & Dryads, Recovery, Stalking, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 00:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebeccaAnabelBurrows/pseuds/RebeccaAnabelBurrows
Summary: I was the Naiads' team Captain. When celebrating a win against the Dryads, my soccer team reunited at a bar. I met Apollo Olympos there, and my life went downhill from there.Later, I'll meet Medusa, an other young abused woman. Together, we're working on changing the justice system.





	Pour qui sont ces serpents qui sifflent sur vos têtes ?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a verse in Jean Racine's Andromaque, which Lacy Lockert translated as follow : For whom do these snakes hiss on each fierce brow?
> 
> It seemed fit, plus I like the snake-ish sound in both the French and the English sentence. 
> 
> Also, please head the tags : this part of the series is way darker than the previous two and might affect the reader.

I was at a bar when I met him. Many of my friends were there too. We were young and partying, drinking and laughing, celebrating. The Naiads had won their last match against The Dryads. We were ecstatic. I've played for years and it was only my second season as Captain of the East River University soccer team.

Blackwoods University had won most of our previous matches, it was a nice change. Not that the Dryads held it against us. Most of us had grown in the neighborhood, and some of the Blackwoods girls had accompanied us. 

It was getting late. Some girls went home. I kept an eye out for the ones that weren't alone. I knew others did, too. At the first sign of unease from a teammate we'll be on our feet.

A guy approached me. Others had tried their luck earlier, without success. No woman had made a pass at me yet, but the crowd of good-looking girls around me might explain it.

I didn't even let this one offer me a drink. 

"Bad choice, lesbian." I said before he opened his mouth. 

Mary Thomas, one of my teammate and lifelong friend smirked. 

The man didn't look like he was used to being said no to. Sure, he seemed handsome enough for a guy and I've seen a few girls from the team ogling him, ready to take over once I would have rejected him. However he did strike me as an arrogant, selfish and vain guy. 

It sounded like a harsh judgement but Mary had dated his carbon copy not long ago and David's character matches his air. He had crushed Mary's confidence to the ground and it had taken her some time to come back to her happy self. 

You would have thought that me being a lesbian would make the guy go away but he didn't. 

"That's great ! My twin sister is trans, so we're cool and all. I love lesbians. I even have a few of them as lovers before."

Mary rolled her eyes at him and made a disgusted face. 

"Not. Interested." I seethed through my teeth, still drinking from my beer bottle. "Go away."

He put a card in front of me. Apollo Olympos, team manager. Shit. He owned one of the most influential soccer team of the country and I knew he had a mansion in the era. I just didn't expect him to drop by the local bar. If he dropped a word, he could get me accepted or rejected in any team I applied to.

I tore his card apart. His amused smile disappeared. He left the bar. 

"The fuck." I mumbled. 

I gathered the bits of paper on the counter to crush them angrily but Mary pushed my hand away.

"Evidence. With that kind of guy you never know." she said, putting the 

I nodded, feeling a bit lost about the situation. I might have put an end to my soccer player's career before it even started. And I was really creeped out by Apollo fucking Olympos.  
Mary squeezed my shoulder protectively. 

"Lance is picking me up. We'll drop you home."

I was glad for Mary's offer. I didn't feel like going home alone. Her brother picked us up not long after. Lance stopped in front of my house and Mary walked me to my door.

"Hey, Daph. It will be fine, okay ?"

I hugged her goodbye but said nothing. I already had the feeling that it will go downhill from here. And it did.

For weeks I felt uneasy when I set a foot in a street. I wouldn't go out at night anymore.

My parents thought I was working hard. My team thought I had a secret girlfriend. My friends thought I needed a break from social media. 

Mary knew something was wrong. She thought I was scared about losing my scholarship or something because of Apollo Olympos.

Not that she was wrong. It scared me. What scared me more was that he haunted my thoughts.  
And not in the nice way Sasha O'Reilly from the Dryads was a few weeks earlier.

I felt his shadow around me. It took me weeks to realise. He was stalking me. The guy in the grocery store that looked like a shabby version of him, the rich guy's SUV that could have belong to him and that I saw everywhere… It was him. When I found out, I ran to my house and called Mary.

She took me right to the police station. She showed them the torn business card. I told them about his insistence, about the feeling to be followed and watched. They laughed it away. We were only college girls looking for attention, or some guy in our neighborhood was tricking me. Nothing to worry about.

That night, Mary held me as I cried on her couch.

It got worse. After my unsuccessful attempt at seeking help from the police, I started bumping into him. He asked me for my number, would walk along me and ask intrusive questions about my sexual life. He did it when I was alone. Once, I was able to text Mary discreetly so she could join me.

She had punched him in the face and hurled insults at him. 

We tried the police station again, without result. Mary got advised to put a check on her anger issues if she didn't want someone to press charges.  
Racism at its best.

From then on, Mary accompanied me everywhere. I couldn't bear the thought to be alone, knowing he stalked me.

Once, I was waiting for Mary in front of the college after classes. She was taking extra classes in Chemistry with a few other nerds and there was nobody else waiting with me. 

Or so I thought. The second he put his hands on me, I kicked and bite and scratched. I threw my bag at him and ran towards busier parts of town.

My lungs were on fire and my sight was obstructed by neverending tears when I stopped running. People were passing me by. I was safe.

I couldn't deal with the harassment. It was too much. I spent some time in a women's refuge to escape Apollo Olympos' grasp. The Laurels, it was called. I wondered if it was because of the neat rows of trees in the garden or if a pensioner was supposed to represent a laurel tree.

At first, I didn't see myself like a tree. More like grass you stepped on. I learned a lot there.  
I felt safe. Men couldn't visit. Mary went to see me every week.

I began to laugh again at my friend's lame jokes and surprising anecdotes - I knew at least half of them were made up. I had lost this habit. Fear would take a lot from you. At the refuge, I met other women. They had suffered from men's actions too.

I met Medusa a few weeks after moving there.

She was only a year and an half older than me. We became friends in a month time. 

She had deep trust issues due to some trauma she wouldn't talk about. I didn't push. Talking about Apollo still made me nauseous and I understood that she had suffered a lot.

Medusa had long hair and always wore hoodies. Nearly a year after our first meetings, she told me she wanted to talk. We went to my bedroom and we sat on the bed with a bowl of sweets.

I waited as she chewed on a gummy bear.  
She pushed her hood away from her face and pushed back her hair. 

I looked at her, feeling sick knowing someone did that to her. I realised it was only the first time I had seen her whole face.

"It's ugly, right ?"

She shook her head, arranged her hair so it would cover the scars and put her hood back on.

"Meda, wait. It's fine, and you're far from ugly, even with your scars. I just can't imagine who could do that to you. But er, it's okay if you don't want to talk."

She looked a bit more at ease but kept her hood on. I let her. You have to respect people's choices if you want them to trust you.

"This morning, you told me about Apollo -"

I had. His face had been all over the news because he was going to sing at some big event. It had been so triggering I had to talk to someone about it.

"That doesn't mean you have to share your story if you don't want to."

She nodded but told me anyway. About what Poseidon Olympos did to her. About how he had given her scars that teenagers would point at, saying they looked like snakes and making hissing sounds when she went past them in her high school's corridors - she was a teacher.

She told me how her colleagues would avoid her, how the parents of her students asked for her depart, saying her face distracted them, made them paralyzed with fear and jeopardized their education.

How the director said she had to go and how the cops laughed at her when she asked for justice. 

I took her hand in mine as she told me all that.

"So when you said it was an Olympos who ruined your life this morning, I thought 'enough'. Fuck Judge Olympos and his twisted family. They'll have to pay. I don't know about you, but I won't be silent anymore. Other girls will talk too."

She looked so certain, so determined. I envied her that confidence.

"What about the consequences ?" I asked. 

I was worried. Correction - I was terrified. Wondering if you were willing to go after one of the most powerful families of the USA would do that to you, I guess. I was afraid we burned our newfound wings.

"Damn them. My life is already torn apart. We deserve justice. I understand if you've suffered enough and don't want to do it but I need to for myself - today I fight back."

I tried to keep a clear head but the fire in Medusa's eyes had half convinced me.

"I am not sure yet about going public about my case but I promise I will be there for you all the way."

Medusa kissed my cheek shyly, blushing.

"It's all I'll ever ask." she promised. 

After nearly half a year, I felt alive once again.


End file.
